When I arrived in Baghdad in the hot and frightening summer of 2003, there were still plenty of people prepared to argue that Tony Blair and George Bush had done the right thing by invading Iraq. I remember a distinguished British journalist telling me by the pool at the al-Hamra hotel that things were getting better, as the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance and tracer fire lit up the sky. That morning I had seen an entire bus full of passengers being robbed by highwaymen at gunpoint on … [Read more...]

In the aftermath of Britain's decision to leave the European Union, I cannot help thinking of that old Mitchell and Webb sketch in which the terrible truth dawns on two Nazi SS officers fighting in the Second World War: that they're the "baddies". I don't think the same realistion has come to the British yet, that in the wake of last week's disastrous Brexit vote, we are the villains of Europe.
Consider what happened. We voted to abandon our friends and allies. Even as Europe's borders are … [Read more...]

That is no country for the young, where the old plan to rob their children of a future just to bask in the nostalgia of a past that never was. That is what the British people plan to do next week, if they vote to leave the European Union. They will turn out in their millions to vote away their children's inheritance, because they are scared of a world that has grown too large for them.
I remember as a child asking my grandmother, a Londoner born and bred, if she thought life was better when … [Read more...]